i can hear you, still
by tinted lens
Summary: you're making me feel; the monsters aren't real. / hanzo&menchi.


.under-appreciated pair contest entry.

**title: **i can hear you, still**  
summary: **you're making me feel; the monsters aren't real.

consider _hxh_ disclaimed.  
title from now, now's song _dead oaks_._  
_and summary from sara bareilles' song _not alone_, aka the hanzo&menchi song.

first time writing this (crack) pairing. lowercase. also, angst. you have been warned.

* * *

the thing about her is—

well. that's the problem, honestly, that he can't bring himself to get up and sort the grand list of fifty-two paragraphs, read over it and contemplate everything, the painfully familiar flash of bubblegum hair and thin smiles and eyes that throws stares at his general direction, sharp, knives and axes and daggers, but he keeps staring back.

he falls in, deep but never quite deep enough to settle.

maybe it'll be his downfall.

* * *

(he tries not to imagine the rest of her, top and bottom, legs and arms and neck and everything in between.

fails miserably.)

* * *

he looks at the paper, imperfection shooting back at him.

whatever.

she's always been a mess anyway.

* * *

fifteenth of march. afternoon. overcast. crowds. bubblegum pink.

and, that's about it.

the last thing he recalls of the fateful (again, _not_) day is—

wait. he doesn't.

(he reminds himself to charge her for the hospital fees if they ever cross paths again.)

* * *

on the twentieth of june, he decides that in hindsight, going to hell with calculated risks is, in fact, the worst (or, _best_, since from past experiences there's never really been a significant difference between the two in his dictionary) thing that he's ever done. ever.

(in the past _month_, he adds, because— well. _just one_?)

* * *

she says, in this unbelievably irritating jaded-little-girl's voice that he can't seem to forget:

"i remember you."

he waits, an agonizing silence lasting for a total of seven seconds. he counts. "who doesn't?"

silence. he thinks she could've said something else. he opts not to listen.

she comes back the next day. he knows this because he does, too, sitting near the window and enjoying the fish.

(only, he's not— see, the glass is just tinted dark enough, just perfect enough for him to look over his head without doing so.)

her reflection is layered with bright lights and cityscapes. it stays that way for the next three nights.

he doesn't look away.

* * *

"we need to stop this." she says, barely a whisper. for once, he looks over his head.

(she's still the same, and he is too, but he doesn't mention that.

no matter how much he wants to.)

he listens to the color of her skin, instead. it's loud.

he very nearly laughs. "stop what?" he says, when the glow fades, melts into the stars.

"_this_." a pause. "this— this, thing. we're doing. i mean— you get the point, right?" she fumbles over her words with the subtlety of pokkle's nonexistent love life (_none_) and for a moment he wonders if she's been setting him up the entire time, pulling the strings without even knowing.

"nice articulation." is all he ends up saying, not having to work too hard on the snickers and chuckles and whatever it takes to make him feel like he's having the upper hand in this game.

she smiles at him all the while and he tries not to read into it, tries not to feel the wrong emotions at the wrong time, missing the cue cards and forgetting to speak his lines.

it's becoming harder to do with each passing night, he thinks.

* * *

he makes the mistake of looking at her. twice.

it's weird, somehow, that behind closed doors, steel cages, and plastic grins and glossed lips—

he sees something more. she's becoming more.

he leans in.

* * *

their teeth collide and perhaps _that_ is when he realizes something's wrong. or maybe it's sooner than that. he isn't particular because the end result is the same either way.

_no_—

* * *

he bites his lip. tastes cherry. the flavor is too sweet, too unfamiliar and it burns against his tongue. _wrong_.

he looks at her for the third time (do you ever learn?) and by then, the damage's done and it's already too late to turn back time.

* * *

she looks too open, too vulnerable and— and, _wrong_. he thinks that it could've been anyone, anybody else staring back at him, pink hair, eyes filled with stars and glowing skin and bright reflections.

(_anyone_.)

* * *

she kisses him back.

(and if it is anyone but her, he wouldn't have cared less.)

* * *

he traces the stars outside his window, names each one of them as hers. the world slowly spins, colors blurring into each other and he can't help but remember, down to the little details, the pale dots of light she blinks, the way she smiles and fingertips brushing against each other.

shadows dance for the rest of the night, disappearing and reappearing with every blink.

* * *

it continues for so long, overstaying its welcome, up to the point where she's the one who opens the door first and leaves the notes— he throws them all out the window, watches the paper crumble inside fire, leaving ashes.

he pulls the covers over his head, looking anywhere else but her, collarbones and eyelashes and silent laughter echoing in the darkness.

he wonders if he should be worried.

* * *

she's gone, and he lies on his bed, telling himself:

she's just somebody else, isn't she?

(isn't she?)

* * *

they never happen.

* * *

he picks up a marker, _black_, and hears the painful screech of ink staining smooth paper— he doesn't close his eyes, can't get the noise out of his head. it sounds like hurt, like disappointment.

he thinks it could mean something, he just can't pinpoint.

* * *

he leaves town the next week.

forgets.

* * *

**lol idk. writing, how do you do it?**

**a little practice piece for **_**nispedana**_**'s underappreciated pairs contest. i have absolutely no idea how to make this pairing work, so. i hope i did well. or at least semi-decent, idk about my own standards.**

**i think i'm going to do a few more of this, just to get the hang of this pairing. and maybe somehow manage to not end it as angst.**


End file.
